JET Set

In five weeks I'm off to Japan for teach of the English to school children in the approximate duration of 365-1095 days.

Oh, if they only knew.

Immediate thoughts on the matter:

1) I am selling almost everything I own of any girth. Bed, car, bass, bike. You know, anything I coveted for any length of time and cost me a lot of money. No big deal. Except for the part where this is the universe's way of punishing me for my capitalistic, material-loving ways.

2) Is it wrong that I occasionally wish I were staying in the US for a year working retail, instead of leaving everyone I know and love, and everything I own, to go to a strange country where, despite two years of study, I will be completely dependent on near strangers to make and go with me to doctors appointments?

3) I wish they would tell me where I'll be going. They haven't yet. They've had two official rounds of "placement" as they call it, but they have yet to "place" me. They could put me anywhere. Osaka, Fukuoka, an island closer to Korea than Japan with a population of 500. Anywhere.

Another lowly JET, unplaced and equally as paranoid and distraught as I am at this finding, asked if there were going to be any additional placement rounds. Our coordinator's response:

"No, from here on out upgraded alternates will simply be thrown from the plane with a parachute. You just start teaching English wherever you land."

Pretty typical of his snark, really. Someone asked if they needed to send in their actual college diploma as proof of graduation, Response:

"Yes, we need a copy of your diploma, as well. Feel free to send in your actual diploma, but just know that I will put it on a wall in the office and my co-workers and I will laugh at you until it stops being funny. Which it probably never will."

4) Please, dear god, do something to stop my insane planning kick. Save me from myself. I have three different check lists, and two budget files sitting on my computer at the moment. I worry that I will waste the coming weeks in the rush to be ready for what comes after, instead of actually enjoying the company of my friends and loved ones.

C'est problematique.